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The Hindu, India
Aug 17 2014
Remembering George Town: Church chronicles
by ESTHER ELIAS
ESTHER ELIAS traces the history of European-built shrines in George Town
In the numerous churches of George Town lies the story of Madras'
tryst with many nations and a journey down five centuries.
Just across the High Court, extends the slender steeple of the
155-year-old Anderson's church, named in memory of Madras' first
Church of Scotland missionary, Rev. John Anderson. In the oil portrait
of Anderson, the handful of white-marble plaques that detail church
history and the two silver communion chalices gifted in 1844, unfold
the story of a man who first believed in education, and then faith.
Anderson is today remembered as the founder of a school on the
Esplanade in a former sailor's house that grew to become Madras
Christian College's first home. While Anderson lies buried with his
wife Margaret in graves at Thana Street, Purasaiwalkam, Rev. Jacqulin
Jothi says his warm spirit lives on in the church that's a haven of
quiet for street children, beggars and weekday worshippers.
Wander further north-west through George Town, and follow your nose
for scents of pulses, spices and coffee along Thatha Muthiappan
Street, and you'll stumble on a cluster of churches, all nearing or
beyond their bi-centenaries. Tucker Church, founded by the Church
Missionary Society in 1820, and named after its second missionary and
minister Rev. John Tucker, was built on land bought from a
'Mussalman'. Its wooden shutter-windows have long given way to local
stained-glass but its 150-year-old, London-made pipe organ still rings
loud at Tamil service every Sunday, observes Henry Thomas, whose wife
is a sixth-generation member of the church. For the most part,
Tucker's looks just as it did in the detailed pencil drawings that
Sarah, John's sister, drew in the 1840s in letters to her 'young
friend' Lisa, now collected in the slim volume South Indian Sketches.
The church just across the road hasn't been as lucky though. Last
year, the brick-red, 153-year-old Broadway Tamil Wesley Church, grew
cracks in its floor and filled with water from underground Metro Rail
tunnelling.
Its predecessor right opposite, the Black Town or Broadway Popham
Church, experienced something similar nearly two centuries ago.
Inaugurated on April 25, 1822, by Wesleyan missionary James Lynch, the
church succumbed to cracks in 1844, and the building that stands today
is its re-opened avatar.
Time has stilled, though, in the 207-year-old William Charles church
tucked away behind the bustle on Davidson Street. Its wooden rafters,
low-sloped roof and outward stone structure remain. Beside the altar
are chairs that Rev. John Selvaraj says belonged to Tamil scholar and
linguist, Bishop Robert Caldwell, who served at William Charles in the
1850s. The furniture now cushions some hefty cats.
Our story slips into the 18th Century with the CSI St. Mark's church,
completed in 1800, which bookends George Town at its north-eastern end
on Pedariyar Koil Street. The grave of its first reverend Richard Hall
Kerr graces the floor before the altar and a plaque was erected at his
death at 40 in 1808. Graves abound within and without the St. Mary's
Co-Cathedral that rises beside the closed door of the 1712 Armenian
Church. St Mary's, first built in 1658, and rebuilt in 1775, springs
to life every Tuesday as rows of the sick, aged and dying from various
faiths wait for alms and miracles at the feet of the St. Antony's
statue. Among graves of dead priests, prominent men and women of the
community and numerous Irish nuns, are the remains of the Armenian
Moorat family with memorial plaques and sculptures, that helped build
the Cathedral, points out Fr. Bellarmine Fernando SDB. Samuel
McCartish Moorat, his wife Anna Raphael and son Edward, known for
squandering his father's fortunes, lie enclosed in the Cathedral's
confession room, their cracked tombstones still bearing the sculptor's
name, P. Turnerelli.
Far from the celebrated areas of George Town, close to where it segues
into the street-maze of Broadway, stands a lone church behind garbage
dumps that has its origins in 1640. The Catholic church, 'Our Lady of
Assumption', has its roots in a church built within Fort St. George by
Fr. Andrew of the Capuchins in 1640. The story goes that over a
century later, after the French invasion of the Fort, the Portuguese
and their church were evicted by the British for supposedly plotting
with the French. In 1749, the church was rebuilt in the Portuguese
neighbourhood on today's Portuguese Church Street, with a tablet at
its roof that read 1640. The Tamils around though, remember it as
'Mathura Nayagi', a moniker for Mary, says Fr. John Andrew. It stood
its ground until 1993, when it was razed to be replaced with the
present swanky structure. As Chennai turns 375 this week, this little
church celebrates it 375th birthday too.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/remembering-george-town-churches-of-george-town/article6324229.ece
Aug 17 2014
Remembering George Town: Church chronicles
by ESTHER ELIAS
ESTHER ELIAS traces the history of European-built shrines in George Town
In the numerous churches of George Town lies the story of Madras'
tryst with many nations and a journey down five centuries.
Just across the High Court, extends the slender steeple of the
155-year-old Anderson's church, named in memory of Madras' first
Church of Scotland missionary, Rev. John Anderson. In the oil portrait
of Anderson, the handful of white-marble plaques that detail church
history and the two silver communion chalices gifted in 1844, unfold
the story of a man who first believed in education, and then faith.
Anderson is today remembered as the founder of a school on the
Esplanade in a former sailor's house that grew to become Madras
Christian College's first home. While Anderson lies buried with his
wife Margaret in graves at Thana Street, Purasaiwalkam, Rev. Jacqulin
Jothi says his warm spirit lives on in the church that's a haven of
quiet for street children, beggars and weekday worshippers.
Wander further north-west through George Town, and follow your nose
for scents of pulses, spices and coffee along Thatha Muthiappan
Street, and you'll stumble on a cluster of churches, all nearing or
beyond their bi-centenaries. Tucker Church, founded by the Church
Missionary Society in 1820, and named after its second missionary and
minister Rev. John Tucker, was built on land bought from a
'Mussalman'. Its wooden shutter-windows have long given way to local
stained-glass but its 150-year-old, London-made pipe organ still rings
loud at Tamil service every Sunday, observes Henry Thomas, whose wife
is a sixth-generation member of the church. For the most part,
Tucker's looks just as it did in the detailed pencil drawings that
Sarah, John's sister, drew in the 1840s in letters to her 'young
friend' Lisa, now collected in the slim volume South Indian Sketches.
The church just across the road hasn't been as lucky though. Last
year, the brick-red, 153-year-old Broadway Tamil Wesley Church, grew
cracks in its floor and filled with water from underground Metro Rail
tunnelling.
Its predecessor right opposite, the Black Town or Broadway Popham
Church, experienced something similar nearly two centuries ago.
Inaugurated on April 25, 1822, by Wesleyan missionary James Lynch, the
church succumbed to cracks in 1844, and the building that stands today
is its re-opened avatar.
Time has stilled, though, in the 207-year-old William Charles church
tucked away behind the bustle on Davidson Street. Its wooden rafters,
low-sloped roof and outward stone structure remain. Beside the altar
are chairs that Rev. John Selvaraj says belonged to Tamil scholar and
linguist, Bishop Robert Caldwell, who served at William Charles in the
1850s. The furniture now cushions some hefty cats.
Our story slips into the 18th Century with the CSI St. Mark's church,
completed in 1800, which bookends George Town at its north-eastern end
on Pedariyar Koil Street. The grave of its first reverend Richard Hall
Kerr graces the floor before the altar and a plaque was erected at his
death at 40 in 1808. Graves abound within and without the St. Mary's
Co-Cathedral that rises beside the closed door of the 1712 Armenian
Church. St Mary's, first built in 1658, and rebuilt in 1775, springs
to life every Tuesday as rows of the sick, aged and dying from various
faiths wait for alms and miracles at the feet of the St. Antony's
statue. Among graves of dead priests, prominent men and women of the
community and numerous Irish nuns, are the remains of the Armenian
Moorat family with memorial plaques and sculptures, that helped build
the Cathedral, points out Fr. Bellarmine Fernando SDB. Samuel
McCartish Moorat, his wife Anna Raphael and son Edward, known for
squandering his father's fortunes, lie enclosed in the Cathedral's
confession room, their cracked tombstones still bearing the sculptor's
name, P. Turnerelli.
Far from the celebrated areas of George Town, close to where it segues
into the street-maze of Broadway, stands a lone church behind garbage
dumps that has its origins in 1640. The Catholic church, 'Our Lady of
Assumption', has its roots in a church built within Fort St. George by
Fr. Andrew of the Capuchins in 1640. The story goes that over a
century later, after the French invasion of the Fort, the Portuguese
and their church were evicted by the British for supposedly plotting
with the French. In 1749, the church was rebuilt in the Portuguese
neighbourhood on today's Portuguese Church Street, with a tablet at
its roof that read 1640. The Tamils around though, remember it as
'Mathura Nayagi', a moniker for Mary, says Fr. John Andrew. It stood
its ground until 1993, when it was razed to be replaced with the
present swanky structure. As Chennai turns 375 this week, this little
church celebrates it 375th birthday too.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/remembering-george-town-churches-of-george-town/article6324229.ece